Really interesting profile of baptist preacher and gadfly Will D. Campbell. He marched with Martin Luther King and escorted black children into desegregated schools, has ministered to Ku Klux Klansmen and country singers like Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, and lambastes the Southern Baptist leadership for their support of war and the death penalty. When…

Lately I’ve been reading Leo Tolstoy’s Resurrection. The novel, Tolstoy’s last, is about a dissolute Russina nobleman named Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff who undergoes a kind of spiritual reawakening when he encounters a woman he had wronged in his youth. She’s a defendant in a criminal trial in which he is sitting as a juror, and…

I’ve been trying to ignore most of the Narnia hype in the run-up to the movie (though I’m looking forward to the movie itself). Like with The Passion of the Christ I find the idea of a “Christian” marketing blitz pretty distasteful. But this article is worth a read. Michael Nelson, a professor of political…

Blog-friend Chris Tessone, formerly of Progressive Protestant, has a new blog Even the Devils Believe. Looks like his life has taken some interesting theological turns since last we heard from him. Welcome back, Chris!

I was at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature for work last week (which was conveniently held here in Philly) and, as is my way, I scoured the book exhibit where most publishers were offering discounts on their wares. One item I picked up from Augsburg Fortress was William…

The apostle and brother of Simon Peter is traditionally remembered today. According to John’s gospel Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist before leaving to follow Jesus. Tradition has him going to preach the gospel in Scythia (near the intersection of modern-day Mongolia, China, and Russia), Epirus (in the southwest Balkans), and Achaia (a…

Advent is fundamentally about the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity coming to be with us here, concretely, in the world. Here’s a couple of good posts on the significance of the fact that God comes to us as a human being: Confessing Evangelical: “Away with abstraction! The…

Nice slideshow at Slate arguing that Fra Angelico was a pivotal figure between stylized medieval art and the more naturalisitic individualized style of the Renaissance. Worth clicking over just to see the paintings.

Advent is the season when we await the Lord’s coming. The coming of the babe in the manger, his coming into our lives at every moment, especially through his word and sacrament, and his coming at the end of the age with the saints and angels in glory. In that spirit, Advent may be a…

Thanks to Siel (the “green LA girl”) for stopping by and offering some informative links on the fair trade coffee issue. I found this overview (PDF) from Oxfam particularly helpful. Commenters raised some good points. First, even if “in the long run” fair trade doesn’t raise prices for farmers, it’s offering concrete help to people…